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Classroom

Today's students carry the most powerful voice in calling for the tough choices that need to be made to secure America's future, because it is their future. The Concord Coalition's classroom presentations, exercises and activities are meant to make the complexities of the federal budget understandable and accessible for students of all ages.

Concord On-Campus Facilitation: We provide numerous materials to help educators facilitate Concord's budget exercises in their classrooms. Additionally, our field staff is very experienced in running our exercises and we can try to arrange a visit to your campus or organization for that purpose.

Exercises:

Principles & Priorities:is our flagship exercise that has been used in hundreds of High Schools, Colleges and Universities across the country. In it, participants work in groups to vote on policy decisions that match with their larger sense of what the principles behind our budgets should be and what priorities the government should place at the forefront of fiscal decision-making.

Debt Busters: is a more condensed version of Principles and Priorities, popular with college classes, but designed to be flexible for Middle and High Schools.

The Penny Game: provides a good introduction to the elements and amounts in the federal budget and works well for all ages, especially elementary, middle, and high schools. This link goes to the full exercise with paper game boards.

The Federal Budget Challenge: In this follow up to our successful online budget simulation, users will work through different policy categories and choose the spending and tax policies that fit their preferences, while being mindful of their budgetary effects. Developed in partnership with the California-based non-profit Next 10, this online tool will track the effect of individual policy choices on interest costs and the projected 10-year budget deficit as the choices are made. The exercise is based on Concord's popular Principles and Priorities game.

If you have any questions about Concord's classroom education program feel free to email us.